The life one led out here was not calculated to tone down any innate restlessness of temperament: on the contrary, it directly hindered one from becoming fixed and settled.
It was on a par with the houses you lived in--these flimsy tents and draught-riddled cabins you put up with, "for the time being"-- was just as much of a makeshift affair as they.

Its keynote was change.

Fortunes were made, and lost, and made again, before you could say Jack Robinson; whole townships shot up over-night, to be deserted the moment the soil ceased to yield; the people you knew were here to-day, and gone--sold up, burnt out, or dead and buried--to-morrow.

And so, whether you would or not, your whole outlook became attuned to the general unrest; you lived in a constant anticipation of what was coming next.

Well, he could own to the weakness with more justification than most.